Breeze-Eastern: Sailing Toward a New Dawn?

By Andrew Drwiega

Breeze-Eastern CEO Brad Pedersen is making a concerted effort toward improving his company’s logistics structure and customer support. “We have to have our supply base prepared and ready,” he told Rotor & Wing on Monday during Heli-Expo in Las Vegas. “It is a mindset change and we want to change the expectations of our customers.”

Peterson said that customer expectations have been changed with the arrival of services like Amazon. People are looking for shorter-order delivery times, he said. “We want a 24-hour response time anywhere in the world.”

His expectation is based on 17 years of Boeing experience as a flight test engineer on the RAH-66 Comanche and a further six years with Sikorsky on UH-60Ms. “I did see the benefit of standard processes with them—not ad hoc. You need four things to make a change: people, organization, tools (software) and process.”

While working at both of the OEMs, he learned the value of timely logistics and support. “If you don’t have all those pieces in place then change is difficult.”

Most of Breeze-Eastern's suppliers "are fairly local and can respond," he said. "Similarly with our distributors—if we show our intent they are prepared to follow. None of us alone can change the system.”

Pedersen's linking with the real world has value: “I’m a guitar buff and you can go to a guitar manufacturer and at any time you can go on the website and see the inventory of their stores worldwide. Why can’t AgustaWestland come onto our website and find out where the nearest part is to the customer that needs it and it can be supplied locally? The more transparency and visibility people have—the more confidence in what we do it will generate.”Related:Support News